Beavers!

The beavers had gnawed through most of this sycamore when I checked on it go the fall, but the tree was still standing. I see the beavers finished the job. I'm sorry they targeted this otherwise healthy tree, but since I didn't catch the damage in time to save it, I'm glad it's finally down. It was very dangerous when it was mostly gnawed through but hadn't yet fallen. I intentionally didn't check on it over the winter since I was afraid I'd take one wrong step and it would topple and crush me.

This one I'll have to move.

This tree, while down over a fence that merely separates property and not cattle, nevertheless has squashed a portion of the fence. I'll try to fix it this spring before stuff starts growing up through the downed section and it becomes very hard to right.

What is this?

This lovely old tree has always had a good half and a bad half. But the bad half seems to me to be looking worse than usual. It might not have deteriorated, I haven't been over here to see the tree since fall so I might be misremembering its condition. Regardless, I'll have the tree guy take a look at it when I next get one out here.

Recently Downed Tree

On my way to the back field I was surprised to find a large pine down. The trees along this fenceline generally stay up; this is the first one I've seen come down since we moved here. But I'm not going to deal with it right away since if you look closely you can see that it didn't hurt the fence. So as long as the cattle are contained, there's no hurry to clear the tree.

Onetime Flowerbed

This used to be a flowerbed with a variety of spring bulbs, but as you can see we've let it go. A few crocus and some groundcover are all that's left. But it's just as well since we're redirecting the driveway and it's going to go right over this area.

The Last Purple

This is the very last purple crocus in the onetime flowerbed.

Last Crocus

It was a beautiful day so I took a walk around the back acres. On my way I saw these few remaining crocuses. There were many when we first moved in, but I never did anything for them so they've dwindled.

My Business-Terry

I caught Terry on the way out the door to his conference. Isn't he cute with his lanyard ID?

Driving Shoes

It was somewhat annoying that Terry insisted we spend our first day in Orlando at the mall, but at least it turned out to be a very good mall. They had a Tod's outlet, which I'd not seen before. Coincidentally, I have been searching for a nice pair of driving shoes since I scuffed a pair of ribbon-trimmed stilettos on my dirty car mat a few years back. As it happens, Tod's is the only company I know of that makes driving shoes, but their pricing reflects this lack of competition. But I lucked out and found an adorable pair of driving shoes in my price range as the outlet! Jealous? Ok, you're probably not jealous if you've never wanted a pair of driving shoes, and it is admittedly low on the pyramid of life's necessities. I'm blogging from my phone so I will save my argument in favor of driving shoes for another time.

AT-Segway

 
I had so much fun on the regular Segway, I wanted to try the all-terrain Segway. So I signed both Terry and myself up for the Ft. Wilderness segway tour. We had such fun we spent the rest of the afternoon plotting a business plan for making money selling Segway tours through our farm. We still haven't quite worked that out, but it might be part of the whole hammock camp experience. . .